Once again I was given the privilege of representing Budweiser Gardens as their #BGReviewer for Monday night’s Brit Floyd concert in the RBC Theatre. For those who don’t know, Brit Floyd is one of the world’s most renowned Pink Floyd cover bands. Covering Pink Floyd tracks from the early 70s all the way up through 1994’s The Division Bell, Brit Floyd puts on a show worthy of the using the word ‘Floyd’. Like their inspiration, they make liberal use of lights, videos, and yes, lasers, to augment the music into an incredible multimedia experience. Brit Floyd is made up of six members along with three backing vocalists. While not on stage in front of the audience, their sound and video/lighting engineers also definitely are an important part of the band and should not be forgotten about.

As a long time Pink Floyd fan, I had heard of Brit Floyd and had wanted to see them on previous stops in and around London. Various physical and logistical factors had always conspired against me. Besides, could they really stack up against having seen Pink Floyd in 1994 during their tour supporting The Division Bell? When the opportunity came up to attend the show and write a review for Budweiser Gardens there was no way I could refuse.

Pretty much from the moment I stepped inside Budweiser Gardens, I knew that I was in for something unique. Banners other imagery were spread throughout leading the way to the merchandise table. Two things caught my eye about the merch table. One, the prices weren’t outrageous. A tour poster for $5? Even concert Ts weren’t the usual ridiculous prices. Two, there was a sign stating that the band would be gathering after the concert to sign autographs. That’s right – for free. Fantastic!

We make our way to our seats and notice a giant videowall behind the stage with an all-too-familiar light ring in the center. At 8:00 the house lights go dark and the energy builds. Having looked at previous stops’ set lists I was expecting Signs of Life and was not disappointed. Building right into Learning to Fly, it was possible to close your eyes and you would be hard pressed to say that you weren’t actually listening to Pink Floyd. From there the band moved onto High Hopes then back in time to Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V). The rest of the first set was a mix of tracks from Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, and The Division Bell before finishing with Pigs (Three Different Ones) from 1977’s Animals. I was delighted to see, part way through the song, a giant inflatable pig appear off to the band’s right, complete with psychedelic glowing eyes!

Of course going to any type of Pink Floyd-related show one expects a fantastic light show complete with lasers. Brit Floyd’s use of LED spot lights is nothing short of amazing.By introducing a slight fog into the arena they LEDs did a fantastic job of replicating lasers. Sure, the beams were a bit bigger but with a full colour spectrum it was easy to forget that there were no lasers. During the intermission I tweeted out a teaser of this review questioning if LEDs can replace lasers. At that point I was ready to say that while they looked fantastic and cut through the air like wider, fatter lasers, they weren’t a perfect replacement.

Yes we have lasers!

The second set started off with a complete performance of Echoes from 1971’s Meddle. It’s something unique to see a band playa 23-minute song. Getting back to my LEDs versus lasers debate, I’m happy to report that the answer presented itself during the beginning of the second set. The answer is…LEDs don’t have to replace lasers; because they have lasers. Multicoloured beams of laser light, carefully aimed to not hit anyone in the audience, shot out from the stage at various points of the song, further improving what is the Brit Floyd experience. The set went on to play the best known tracks from The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon, and Meddle. Their cover of Great Gig in the Sky is truly beautiful. A standing ovation, the first of the evening, greeted the backing vocalist at the end of that track. After Money, the band took the time to introduce each member of the band, including all three backing vocalists. I’m not entirely sure but it seemed like Ola Bienkowska, the backing vocalist who performed Great Gig in the Sky received the most applause as well. They then went into the final song of the second, Comfortably Numb. After that, the stage lights went dark but the house lights stayed off. After a moment of darkness broken by applause and cheering from the audience, the band returned for a two-song encore. The first song was Wish You Were Here. It’s something special to be part of an entire arena singing along with the band. The final track of the night was The Wall’s Run Like Hell. They held nothing back for this song, the lasers and lights were frenetic and the band, after nearly 3 hours of performing still had the energy to pump out this track. After a final ovation, the band left the stage and the house lights came up.

For this review I wanted to try to avoid comparing Brit Floyd to Pink Floyd as well as avoid comparing this show to the Pink Floyd concert I attended back in 1994. I realized it would be foolish to do so. While the experience is unique, ultimately the band wants to be known for providing the best Pink Floyd experience short of it actually being a Pink Floyd experience. And they do an incredible job at it. We were treated to an amazing show put on by a group of artists that are obviously in love with the source material. One thing is for certain, the next time Brit Floyd makes an appearance in the London area, I’ll be doing everything I can to make sure I’m there.

Thank you again to Budwesier Gardens for providing the tickets in exchange for this review and thank you to Brit Floyd for loving the music and wanting to allow new generations to experience it live.

It seems somewhat fitting that I chose to move the website to the new host at this point in the calendar year. Prior to the update posts, the last post here was from May of last year talking about Ryan’s birthday. Well, as birthdays are known to do, his birthday rolled around again and we celebrated his birthday with family on Mother’s Day and then followed it up with his friends party this past Saturday at Palasad North.

Pictures are posted above – hover over the ‘Pictures’ option below the Surfergeeks logo and then choose the entry for his birthday. Or, for the truly lazy, you can just click the link here.

Once again, the weather, while threatening rain, held off so that we host outside. Once again, Scott, Kyle, and Blaine were in the pool. This year they were joined by Alex & Ryan however! AND, as an added bonus, the pool wasn’t anywhere close to green! A great time seemed to be had by all.

This year, for his friends party, Ryan wanted to have it at Palasad and do some bowling. He invited Rhys and Alex from Beavers and six kids from his class. Of those six, five of the invites went to girls, one went to a boy. Smart kid. Of the six, five RSVP’d that they would come and all five showed up! Everyone seemed to have a great time bowling – even the ones that didn’t look like they had ever seen a bowling ball before. Our party was hosted by Ally and Schylar. Schylar was a noobie and was in training. She did great and it provided the kids double the attention. All the kids seemed to have a great time. There were no meltdowns by our guests and we didn’t lose any! So have a peek at the pics if you want.

Hello Everyone! It’s been a while. Lots of things have happened but at the same time, not too much has changed. The kids are getting bigger. But let’s jump back a bit. Last summer was relatively uneventful. We held a couple FM96 Basement/Backyard BBQ parties, our Annual BBQ & Poker Night, and did a day-trip to Toronto to see a Jays game. Fall brought us to Alex’s 9th birthday (Christ…double digits this year…), we decorated our house for Halloween and had 150 kids come by to score some candy and be scared. Hoping to out-do ourselves this year. December saw our one-year anniversary of being in the house as well as our second Christmas in the house. Because of the weather in December we made the decision to put on a new steel roof. That should be starting any day now hopefully. Opened up the pool early again in hopes of being able to use it for Ryan’s birthday party which was this past weekend. And yep, we did.

Along the way, we all started doing rock climbing and bouldering. Nikki & Ryan really took to it while Alex & I are more casual. Earlier this month Nikki took part in the Climb for Cancer 2015 event held at Grand River Rocks in Kitchener. Her, Jackie, Mike & Celeste formed a team. Together they raised over $800 and climbed over 5,500 feet in four hours. Yep, over a mile! There’s a short video of one of Nikki’s climbs here.

We also furthered our addiction to boardgames, vastly growing our collection. We’re now hosting one or two boardgaming nights each month where you guys* are more than welcome to come over, hang out, and play some fun games with us.

So as I mentioned, I really have designs on writing more on here. I’ll hopefully get some links up soon of some of the pics from the past year. There aren’t a lot however.

*by “you guys” I mean friends of ours. If you’re some stranger who just randomly come across this site, sorry, you’re not invited.

If you’re reading this then Congratulations! you’re seeing the website at its new home with cleverhost.ca. If you’re seeing this, you’ll likely also notice that the post immediately before this one is celebrating Ryan’s birthday weekend…from last year. In honour of the move to the new server, I’m going to make a concentrated effort to write more here. Give my scores* of readers something new to read, some pictures to look at, etc.

I’ll post an update tonight about Ryan’s birthday weekend THIS YEAR. Along with some other stuff.

Everyone knows that Nikki has done an amazing kick-ass job at losing weight. I tried. I had some success. I backslid. I still have a net loss but it’s simply not good enough. I want to lose weight and the only way I see my self committed to doing it is to have motivation. I figured I needed something that I loved more than potato chips to make that happen. So, what do I love more than potato chips? Money! So here’s the deal. I’m looking for people to go mano-a-mano with in a weight loss challenge. Below are the parameters that I’m suggesting but am willing to consider variations/modifications to it. I already have one challenge on the go that is a modified version of this but am looking for more.

The Challenge: Lose 40lbs* by June 21st (first day of summer)

The Deal: We each pony up $100. If we both make the goal then no money is exchanged. If one of us fails, they pay the other person. If we both fail we donate the $200 to a local charity. I’m suggesting the London Food Bank but the charity is negotiable.

The Method: Don’t care. Exercise, starvation, whatever. As long as it doesn’t involve liposuction or any other type of immediate surgery. So if you happen to have a 40lb tumor that you know is being removed between now and summer then I’m glad you’re looking after your health, but I’m not taking that bet.

We’re happy to announce that as of 3:00pm yesterday we officially became owners of a new (to us) house! The past week has been an insane roller coaster with more twists and turns that the best that Canada’s Wonderland can throw at you. We weren’t 100% sure we were going to actually get the house until we actually had the keys in our hands. It was quite the stressful week.

Today Nikki and I were joined by friends and family to unload the shipping container. All of us managed to empty it out in just over an hour. To everyone that was here – thank you! Your help was so greatly appreciated. We are hoping to have a housewarming party in January so everyone keep an eye out for the invite.

If we don’t seem online or available as much the next couple weeks it’s because we wading through box after box of old house figuring out where to put it all in the new house.

First, let me say here that I curse Tim Allen and Hollywood for causing people to forget how to properly spell Santa Claus. Okay, now that I’ve got that out of the way onto the meat!

Last night Nikki & I took the boys downtown to see this year’s iteration of our annual Santa Claus Parade. The boys had an okay time. It wasn’t a bad time, but it wasn’t great either. They enjoyed seeing the Jolly Old Fat Man at the end and enjoyed some of the music. What they didn’t enjoy was the long wait for it to begin, or once it did begin, the periods where the parade would stop for a length of time.

It seems to me that London’s version of this annual tradition is at a crossroads. It likely has been for a few years and will likely continue to be for more years to come as we all know this city is absolutely terrific at inaction. Our parade is in the middle of an identity crisis and the organizers need to step back and examine what they want the parade to be. They need to ask themselves if the purpose of the parade is for the children and families of the city or if the purpose of the parade is for businesses to advertise. As a father and not a business, my take on which side of the line they should land is pretty clear. I think it’s time for the organizers to reign in the over-advertising that permeated the parade from beginning to almost the end of the entire parade. Let’s get back to what the kids are looking for – entertaining floats, great music, and, of course, Santa!

Now please don’t get me wrong, I realize that it is important for businesses that are taking the time and money to even bother to put a float in the parade to receive some recognition. What I don’t want to see is a lead vehicle with a few Christmas lights on it with some type of vehicle wrap screaming out the company with some dinky little “float” behind it that is really nothing more than a wagon being pulled by a pick-up truck with a few kids and parents sitting on the wagon waving at the people on the street. The organizers need to limit the size and amount of advertising that goes onto each float. Companies are able to present their information on a sign that’s no larger than 2’x3′. One on each side of the float would be fine. There are some great local companies that participate in the parade like Palasad but all they do is stick their company-wrapped vehicle (along with aforementioned string of Christmas lights around the window) in the parade along with their mascot walking along handing out advertising fliers for the business. They don’t even stick a Santa hat on the mascot. Palasad isn’t the only company guilty of this – what exactly does Mr. Peanut have to do with Christmas? At least Club House Foods was giving away turkey gravy packets to parade-goers. No lead cars, no massive banners along 18-wheelers with nothing more than a Christmas tree (maybe) and kids and parents waving off the back of a flatbed. That’s not a float, that’s rolling advertising.

I love that the organizers come up with some theme each year. I don’t love how few entries actually embrace that theme. This year’s theme was “Christmas Around the World” and had the opportunity to not only entertain but also educate our fair city on how various countries celebrate Christmas. Sadly, there were about three floats that honoured the theme along with a couple groups of people walking along with flags of countries and what I presume was text that said “Merry Christmas” in that country’s native language. Again, this is where the organizers need to put their foot down and enforce adherence to the theme. Either that or make the decision to do away with themes completely. I’m not asking for floats equal in quality to what we’ll see in two weeks in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade or what Disney Imagineers put forth in their holiday parade; I totally understand that these floats are being made by volunteers on an extremely limited budget. But I don’t think it’s out of line to ask the entrants to follow the theme of the parade. And, since I’m hacking away at tradition, I’ll take a swing or two at one of the perennial entrants in the parade – the Mocha Shriners. These guys do amazing work. They are all about the kids and that’s simply awesome. I still think it’s a shame that London didn’t land the Children’s Hospital back when it was in the running. And for the most part, I enjoy their annual efforts in the parade – the oriental band, the mini cars, etc. But then there’s the part I don’t quite get – the other stuff. One of the chapters had a terrific entry only to be followed by a pick-up truck towing a big trailer with their logo emblazoned upon the side. There may have been a wreath or two hung from the top of the trailer. Why is it there? We were very clearly aware who they were and what chapter they were from. If this truck was some type of necessary support vehicle then have it follow on a parallel street. Also, can someone tell me the purpose of the Love Bug Shriners’ entry? Six classic VW bugs, some of them with Christmas lights, some without. No cohesion.

The music was, as usual, amazing. Maybe not quite enough of it, but great regardless. There were three or four groups of performers that were dancing along to an actual person singing Christmas music (or, in the case of Bobnoxious’ annual entry, an entire band performing). The marching bands were great. As a band geek, I enjoy band music and have much respect for those that can not only play an instrument well but also walk in sync with others. I’d fall flat on my face, possibly causing a domino-like cascade of musicians.

The final group that make up our annual parade are the various services around the city – police, fire, ems, etc. I enjoy their participation as it gives them a chance to usually showcase some classic vehicles as well as the latest additions to their rolling stock. These men and women do a tough job for the city and deserve the recognition. Their presence and interaction with the parade-goers helps improve public relations and their respect in the community. Something certain departments are in desperate need of this year. (On a totally unrelated note I couldn’t help but notice that the police entry was nowhere near the Western University Cheerleader entry. Coincidence?). It was great to see the local firefighters in the parade right alongside the London Food Bank collecting food from the public. New this year was the London Middlesex EMS entry. Great to see them in it as well. The last city service I’m going to mention is one that has been travelling the streets of London every holiday season for as far back as I can remember – the London Transit Commission ChristmasHoliday Bus. Every year I’ve enjoyed the effort that someone goes to that ends up as our decorated bus. I also wonder how the city avoids being sued into the stone-age for copyright infringement but that’s beside the point. This year my enjoyment was shattered and nothing but dismay and embarrassment left in its place. Down the left side of the bus and along the back (also presumably along the right side as well) were the words Season,s Greetings. No, I didn’t make a typo there. Instead of an apostrophe there was a comma. How is this even possible???

Perhaps the biggest disappointment this year was the timing of the parade itself – on two levels. The organizers said the parade would be starting at 6pm. Now, for anyone that goes to these parades each year, we KNOW they never start on time – it’s usually about 6:10 or 6:15 when they finally turn onto Dundas. This year it seemed closer to about 6:45 or so. Why don’t the organizers change things up for the future and tell all participants to be ready to go at 5:00. If you aren’t there and ready to go at five then sorry for your troubles, hope you come back next year. That way it gives an hour to fix last minute snafus or minor order changes so that it can start on time. The other timing issue is on a wider scale. This year’s parade has drawn criticism for taking place before Remembrance Day. Personally speaking, I don’t understand how one thing has anything to do with the other. Will going to the parade cause me not to pause and remember the actions of my Grandfather and other Canadian military members on November 11th? I understand that people are saying its disrespectful. Again, I don’t understand how. Is it because we’re talking about Christmas before Remembrance Day? If that’s the case do these people upset with the parade boycott any store selling Christmas-themed merchandise before November 11th? Most stores now have Christmas merchandise up well before October 1st and are in full swing by November 1st. Here’s the thing – I TOTALLY get that it’s an individuals right to choose whether or not to support the parade. After all, it was the efforts of our military in WWI and WWII that secured those rights. It’s a divisive issue with both military and civilians on both sides of the issue. Fortunately, that’s what choice is all about. Personally, I appreciated the presence of the Canadian military in last night’s parade. It spoke volumes as to which side of the coin those members fall. That said, I do think the parade is too early. The only thing I can think is that the organizers are catering to the city malls as they traditionally don’t kick off their Santa appearances until after the parade. And the earlier they can get Santa out there, the more money they can rake in for overpriced pictures.

My thought is to shift the parade back two/three weeks so that it’s in line with the American Thanksgiving Weekend. Keep the parade on the Saturday, strip it down to what’s important and what the purpose of the parade is all about and bring the fun and enjoyment back. If I want to watch commercials I can get cable television for that.

So our house is sold. The buyer did their home inspection and happily didn’t find any raccoons living in the attic; or anything else that was a deal breaker. They’ve waived their conditions so we’re set for an October 11th closing. That’s the Friday before Thanksgiving. That’s three weeks from today. Yay! Looking forward to it.

Now, for those of you keeping score at home, closing on the new house is currently set for December 13th. That’s a wee bit off of October 11th. So it appears that we’re going to have to take on a Nomadic lifestyle for two months. We’re trying to get the closing date moved up to something closer but there are circumstances on the sellers’ side which could make that difficult to do. Keep watching this space for updates.

Nikki & I went over to the new house today to do the house inspection. I’d already looked at the electrical during the walkthroughs but wanted to pay a bit closer attention to it today as well as look in the attic and check out the plumbing and the pool. As I slide open the attic hatch I thought it smelled a little odd for an attic. Not that I hang out in attics all too often but definitely was not what I was expecting an attic to smell like. I spotted animal droppings on the top of the attic hatch. Large-ish droppings. Scanning around the attic with the flashlight I spot two glowing eyes from the one corner of the attic. Yep, there was a racoon living up there. I named him George. A trip outside spotted a portion of the attic where the soffit is torn down that would allow anything that could climb a brick wall access to the attic. So yeah, that’ll have to be taken care of by the current owners and right quick.

Took the kids over to the splash pad by the new house today and I wandered back over to the house to see if any of the neighbours were out and about. The next door neighbour was outside and filled me in on the history of the house. Fortunately nothing was terribly drastic about the history of the house. The neighbour told me that there were cats and racoons in the spring but this is the first she’s heard of anything this summer.

So other than George, the house looked pretty good. Small stuff here and there that we’ll need to take of over time. Nothing that’s a real priority over what we had already determined what needed to be done.

In selling news – we’ve had lots of interest in viewings but no second showings or offers yet. Have a couple more lined up for the next couple days so hopefully one of those is looking for something like we have.

It’s time for a change! A big change! And this time it’s not the layout of the website. Like the Jeffersons, we’re movin’ on up! No dee-lux apartment in the sky for us though. We’ve just completed a conditional purchase on a new house to turn into our home. Most of the conditions will be easy enough to eliminate. The tricky one will be selling our current house. Other than that we’re golden. And what a house it is! Nikki & I came up with a list of everything we NEED in a house as well as a list of things we want. This house…has it all! REAL bedrooms (you know, with doors AND closets!), a dining room! A big kitchen! Plenty of space! A garage! (No more brushing off my car in the morning before work!!!!) Oh and an in-freakin’-ground pool!!! I *CANNOT* wait until next summer! Next year’s Annual BBQ & Poker Night is gonna be the best one yet! So keep an eye on this site and as soon as there’s more information I’ll be sure to share. At some point I’m likely going to be calling on some volunteers to help move the big stuff. We already have a shipping container partly filled. Come moving day all that will be left are a few big items (a bed or two, couch, etc.) and unloading at the other end. No idea when that’s going to be yet but bet your ass there’s going to be some drinks and food at the other end!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that we decided to stick around in London. We did consider checking out some places outside of town. Should this deal fall through, who knows? There are some NICE properties not too far outside the city limits. The biggest downfall to the new house is that it is in Ward 4. Of course, I may get a ton of free swag from my esteemed (heh) Councillor.

Yes, it’s true! There’s more pics. There about 18 pictures added to the first album. And then I had to create a second album since there’s apparently a maximum of 1,000 pictures per album. I’m also slowly going through and adding comments to some of the pictures so keep checking back.

Well, we made it. We rolled into London just after 7:00pm. Alex was sickish most of the day and Ryan, while not sick, was pretty quiet too. A good part of the day saw both boys sleeping. Other than that, the drive was uneventful. I’ve got about 2,000 pictures to go through and pick the best of the best and I also plan on writing an overall recap of my thoughts of the trip. Watch for those soon.

Two days of driving that is. We hit McDonald’s for breakfast and were on the highway by 9am for our long drive home. We hadn’t fully decided where to stop for the night but I wanted to get to at least Knoxville. Supper was WAY off I-75 in Chattanooga at Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate Ryan’s birthday. Both boys had a great time there. Ryan was thrilled when the games would spit out the prize tickets – even if he just got one. I write this at 6am on Sunday after a relatively sleepless night. Sometime around 11:30 Alex got sick. We thought maybe he ate too much right before bed. Then not too long after that Ryan, who almost never gets sick, got sick. The count currently stands at Alex 3, Ryan 2. Nikki & I are both fine so we’re not entirely sure what caused the sickness. At this point we’re thinking possibly a bout of food poisoning but the only things we think it could be may be the McDonald’s cheeseburgers they had for lunch or the twizzlers they ate after supper.

So the drive today should be a fun one. Hopefully it’s all out of their system now.

Today was our last day in Florida. Alex and I went back to Disney to finish up the Sorcerer’s of the Magic Kingdom interactive card game and do a few more rides. We were home by 4 and lazed out by the pool until about 7. Got mostly packed and ready to go for the drive home.

Today was our fifth day at Disney. We had visited all the parks already so today was mostly about park hopping to go on rides that we wanted to do again. The number one ride that both boys wanted to re-do was Test Track at Epcot. So we parked at the Magic Kingdom, hopped the monorail for Epcot and went on Test Track. After that, Ryan wanted to do the Figment ride again so we did that. Then it was back to the Magic Kingdom where our first stop was to get our daily spells for the Sorcerer’s game and pick up where we left off. As for rides, the only ones the kids were into doing were Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain. After the rides we did a few more of the Sorcerer’s game stops before calling it a day and heading home. The only other item of note was that I had a funnel cake. Yummy.

Unfortunately Ryan was rather whiny all day. I think he’s done. Little dude’s probably walked more in the past couple weeks than he has the rest of his life. Tomorrow it will just be Alex and I returning for our final day of Disney. We’ll likely do a couple rides and finish up the Sorcerer’s game.

While most of the day was spent on Disney property it was actually a non-park day. We had a lazy morning where we cooked some breakfast and made the villa smell like sausages. Just after 10 we headed over to Disney to the Winter Summerland Mini-golf course for a round of mini-golf. Nikki isn’t a fan of mini-golf and her back was a little sore so she sat out while the boys and I played a round. The course was a neat course but the highlight of the round was Alex finding a black rat snake slithering across one of the holes. He didn’t even freak out. I managed to snap a picture before it disappeared under a bush.

After the mini-golf we headed over to Typhoon Lagoon, one of Disney’s two water park areas. The focus of this park is a giant lagoon that doubles as a wave pool that offers two types of waves – surfin’ waves and bobbin’ waves. While the bobbin’ waves were fun it was the surfin’ waves that were the real draw. A wave about six feet high would start at the end of the lagoon and sweep towards the beach. The wave packed a punch and if you weren’t ready it would be very easy to be swept off your feet. The boys loved the waves but only if they were being held by us. And really, I wouldn’t want to send them into those waves without us being right there. As I type this, Alex is reading what I write and is pestering me to tell all of you that the waves went on for an hour before switching to the bobbin’ waves. In actuality, they operated the wave pool on a schedule that flipped back and forth between the two wave types throughout the day. We also went on a few of the tube rides the park had to offer but steered clear of the large slides.

We headed back to the villa for supper and just hung out here for the night.